Applied Economics Seminar Series. Dynamic investment in teamwork skill: Theory and experimental evidence
Published: 17 September 2025
15 October 2025. Professor David Gill, Purdue University
Professor David Gill (Purdue University)
Dynamic investment in teamwork skill: Theory and experimental evidence
Wednesday, 15 October 2025, 15:00–16:30
Room 383, Adam Smith Business School
Abstract
Teamwork and collaboration are increasingly important. To help understand the dynamics of teamwork skill formation, we provide the first systematic analysis of dynamic investment in teamwork skill. First, adopting a dynamic game approach, we construct a theoretical framework where investment in team skill creates persistent benefits and externalities for teammates, but where investment is risky because the benefits depend on successful team coordination. Second, we take this framework to the laboratory to gain insight into factors that influence dynamic investment in team skill. We find under-investment compared to the efficient benchmark. However, investment in team skill responds strongly to incentives, in line with specific patterns predicted by our theory. We also find that people's theory of mind and propensity to coordinate predict how much they invest in team skill. We conclude that careful design of team incentives and selection of team members can facilitate the dynamic development of teamwork skills.
Biography
David Gill is the James Brooke Henderson Professor in the Department of Economics at the Daniels School of Business at Purdue University.
David is an applied microeconomist who uses experiments and game theory to understand human behavior. David's research has been published in journals such as the American Economic Review, the Journal of Political Economy and the Journal of Economic Theory.
Before coming to Purdue, David worked at the University of Oxford and the University of Southampton. At Oxford, David was Associate Professor in the Department of Economics and the Roger Van Noorden Fellow at Hertford College.
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First published: 17 September 2025